IGANYANA BUSH CAMP, HWANGE, ZIMBABWE
I arrived at school at 9 o’clock. My bags were as heavy as an elephant! When the safari truck set off, I was so excited. It would be my third time to see painted dogs. I couldn’t tell you the whole trip there so I’ll tell you what happened when we arrived at the camp.
It was not what I had expected. A man called Wilton greeted us and took us to the dining area. He told us what Iganyana meant (Painted Dogs) and then showed us to our dormitories which were three beds in a thatched rondavel. I was in room two. It was lovely. We had lunch, watched a wildlife video on painted dogs and then went to bed.
We woke at 05.45, picked up our buckets and went to get hot water for washing. It was so cold I nearly had icicles coming from my hair! Breakfast was delicious and then we split into groups to start our activities.
The activities were; game drive, finding information on the computer about wild dogs and guided tour of the information centre, environment quiz, learning how to use a dart gun and going to see the wild dogs.
Each group took it in turn to do the activities. We all had a log book to record what we saw. Miss Stephenson also gave us a scrap book so we could write a diary at the end of each day.
When we were walking back from the computer room, we saw the wild dogs. They were making funny greeting sounds to each other, what excitement! On the game drive we saw a collared lion, loads of ellies, wildebeest, sable and zebra. It got very cold though and we were glad to get back to the camp for dinner, hot chocolate and toasted marshmallow kebabs on the fire.
This is the most exciting bit!!!
Learning about how they dart the wild dogs so they can fit them with a collar, was really fun. We all had a go at shooting a dart at a target. Then we looked at the collars. We also saw lots of wire snares that people used to trap gazelles, only the wild dogs get caught as well. This was very sad. One of the wild dogs at the sanctuary had a broken leg and another had a broken back. The others have formed a pack and will be released soon. I n the evening we had a real treat! The Iganyana Dance Troupe came to perform for us. We had great fun and all got up to dance. This completed our last day.
We left the camp after breakfast and said goodbye to everyone. I was really tired. We got through the Zimbabwe and Zambia borders okay and arrived back at school. It was a wonderful trip.
By Kalai Shenton
